LADEE launch gallery: Wallops aims for the Moon

Ars was present as NASA's Wallops sent its first hardware into lunar orbit.

Wallops doesn't only launch rockets. Some scientific research can be done much more cheaply using instruments lofted by reusable balloons. Here, we get an introduction to this program.

Scale models of the balloons used by NASA were on display.

Two Wallops staff members introduce the press to the facility's bread-and-butter: rocketry.

Careful where you point that thing...

"We point it that way." More seriously, Wallops builds a set of rockets with different capabilities using a collection of parts that can be mixed and matched.

Some of the different vehicles made possible by this mix-and-match system.

The payloads on these rockets are smaller, but you can squeeze a lot into them.

The press gets to view the launch control room at Wallops.

Different screens display the launch area and local maps.

The control room has a mix of hardware that can be reconfigured for a number of purposes.

Some of that hardware has been in use for a while.

LADEE, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, is the reason everyone was gathered at Wallops. It's the first time this facility was used to send something to the Moon.

A full view of the launch gantry, where the Minotaur V was being prepped to send LADEE toward the Moon.

Erik Svensson

With the press on hand, Wallops opened the gantry to give us a view of the rocket.

The rocket is a repurposed ICBM, called the Peacekeeper while in service.

Some of the crew were still at work on the afternoon of the launch.

Zooming back, those same people provide a sense of the size of the rocket.

The crew takes a break to have a look at the press below.

It's almost show time as the gantry has been moved back from the Minotaur.

The rocket's exhaust lights up the night sky.

With the last support being pulled away, LADEE departs for the Moon.

Ars was lucky enough to have a reader on hand for last weekend's launch of the LADEE lunar orbiter at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. He got an introduction to some of the other work done at Wallops, a visit to the Minotaur rocket and its control room, and was on hand to photograph the launch itself. He also provided a first-hand account of the visit and launch.

The Indigo was used for Telemetry, images/video pushed to it and then out to the larger screens. I wished my pics had turned out better, but many there got nothing at all. I am better prepared for the Sept 17th launch, that's during the day and one upcoming for November at night (a Minotaur I)I want to thank ArsTech for their help with this event. I had a great time there, everyone was friendly and professional and courteous

That 'mix and match' rocket set reminds me of some of my frankenstein Estes rocket projects I attempted in middle school. They ended up like many of my rockets is Kerbal Space Program; in the dirt, in multiple pieces and usually on fire. I'm sure Wallops is having a better success rate than I did

Anyone interested in learning more about the sounding rockets shown in the poster can read about them here. They're mostly designed for atmospheric research, but the largest one (Black Brant XII) can send a 200kg payload up well over 1000km, which is quite impressive. I don't think it has the thrust needed to put something into orbit, but that definitely qualifies as outer space.

An SGI Indigo?!??? Talk about a blast from the past... the distant past. What in the world could they still be using that for, I wonder? Heck, a Raspberry PI has WAY more horsepower than that relic.

The way government (and let's face it, sometimes academia and business as well) often works, it's probably running some MIPS binary, the source for which has long ago been lost, or whose programmer has retired leaving nobody who can make heads or tails of the build scripts. They probably figure it's cheaper to buy three spare systems on eBay and pay the power bill than rewrite it.

I didn't take a pic of it, as it was tucked away, but there was another SGI system in use there, a mid-tower brown-ish colour Indigo I think. And I was told those weren't the only ones thee so my guess is Portent is on target with his guess

Maybe it's just me, but I kinda miss the clean design of the old Apollo era consoles. Now all of the mission controls seem to be a bunch of mismatched hardware and cables. Sure I get that it's nice to update things so quickly without removing panels...but it was so beautiful...